If anyone's wondering why Alessandro's post is before mine I changed the link to the video and could only do this by reposting. 😀

Chris

Not traditional diagonal planking as such but one of the things I like about the early Fairey Marine Boats was the construction of the hulls.

These were formed with multiple layers of 2.5mm thick veneer that were formed around a wooden buck and then cured under heat and pressure in an autoclave.

Small boats such as dinghies would have three layers whereas the bigger boats such as Huntsman and Swordsman could have up to nine layers. This makes for a very strong yet light hull. Unfortunately the process was very labour intensive and Fairey then moved into fibre-glass hulls.

Not a technique than can be used in models!

Chris

Hi ChrisF, thank you very much for your intervention and for the very explanatory video.
In this forum, thanks to modelers like you, nautical culture is also promoted.

There were a number of boat builders in the 20/30's that made double planked boats some up to 50ft. Back in the 70' I owned a Sheppard that was such and a real ..... to repair
AustinG

Thanks Roy, very informative, as always.

You reminded me that for the French Xebec, a small static model, the first lime wood planking had already turned out so well that I could have avoided the second layer but the color was unsuitable, too light.

In the schooner brig I inserted a third internal vertical planking for greater strength, then I evolved and used resin to reinforce and waterproof the interior.

I finished coloring the cannons. Maybe I got the shade right. Tomorrow I'll see in natural light.

Hello Alessandro. The many torpedo boats and similar 100 foot+ 'ships of war' were double diagonal planked with a layer of canvas in between the planking. It is a very economical and fast way of using wood. The hull lines were developed to allow for ease of planking against seaworthiness. Mainly single chine boats and the chine enabled a spray rail to be fitted that increased the speed as well. Repair was easy as well.

It led to the idea of glass fibre resin hulls with their cross weaved patterns of fibre glass. Now in large boats using speed to avoid the enemy. Moulds took over from hull frames as to the shape. I believe the J class yacht Humanin (from memory) was constructed of wood and used an additional process of vacuum forming as well.

Most warships are constructed to withstand attack so metal is a likely building material, however minesweepers were originally wood to counter magnetic mines until the idea of de-gausing was developed.
In model form quite soft materials like newspaper and sticky brown paper can be used over a mould to form a rigid and very light hull. The newspaper having similarities to glass fibre and when held in place by a glue is multi-stranded and very strong.

Regards
Roy

Hi Len and good evening to all the naval modelers on this forum.

In order not to disturb Duncan's work I decided to create a new topic to tell you my opinion regarding your interesting post. Thanks Len for these ideas to think and discuss things we like.
The discussion starts from the link indicated below.


Unfortunately I don't know of any real ship that has double wooden planking.
Just because I ignore it doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all.
Perhaps someone, in contemporary times, given the technical evolution of materials such as glues and paints, has thought of using a technique of this kind (which is typically modeling) also on real boats.

Regarding double planking on real ships, I'll just tell you what I'm sure of and then we can make (for pure pleasure) all the hypotheses we want and like to make.

Ships of the ancient era such as: Phoenix ships, Egyptian ships, Liburnians, triremes, quadriremes, quinqueremes of the various Greek and Roman polis did not have double planking.
The ships of the medieval era, such as: galere, galleys, galeotte, galeazze, of the Italian marinated cities such as Pisa, Genoa or Venice, the dromons of the Eastern Roman Empire, drakar vikings, the Hanseatic cocks, caravels, carracks, naos, of the European states they did not have double planking.
Ships of the modern era such as Spanish and European galleons did not have double planking.
Ships of the contemporary era such as warships of the line, brigs, frigates and schooners did not have double planking.
All historic wooden boats from the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Sea for commercial use do not have double planking.
Even subsequently, as far as I know, double planking was never adopted for fast ocean-going clippers (such as those that transported tea from China to the United Kingdom).
Of course, the copper covers that were adopted to protect the hull had nothing to do with the double plating.
The list was not exhaustive and complete but only indicative, so I left out many other types of ships.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

The reasons why double plating is adopted in the modeling field are quite evident (obvious) and are always of an aesthetic nature.
I won't write these reasons now, I don't want to say everything.

The reasons why on real ships since the first boats the planking was not double lies, in my opinion, in the difficulty of making a double one combined with its total uselessness.
The single planking is the most logical and natural thing you can think of, although the techniques are different and here we can open another nice discussion.

While I don't know of any double-planked wooden ships, I imagine the weight problem can be overcome. I can halve the thickness of the planking so that by placing it double I will have the same thickness as the single one.

blogs/124291